Sunday, October 18, 2015

God, Money and Politics

Rudy
Barnes, Jr.

Jesus
said, No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the
other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
(Matthew 6:24) If loving God requires
that we love our neighbors as ourselves, especially the poor and weak, then we
cannot love God and love the money and worldly power that exploits the poor and
weak. That is a principle of faith
common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

It
is a stretch to describe the U.S. as a Godly nation given its materialism and
hedonism. And the consummate love of
wealth, pleasure and power is not unique to the U.S. It is prevalent wherever humankind has the
freedom to choose between the love of God and money. If the two are considered competing masters for
our souls, then most people seem to have put the love of money and the pleasures
and power it can buy over the love of God.

Does
God Bless America? We hear that mantra from
politicians as they campaign for money and votes, but it is an offense to God
to claim blessings for a nation that worships money, pleasure and power. Some young Muslims have been so offended by the
decadent values of libertarian democracies that they have left them for the oppressive
idealism of ISIS. And many people of
faith and reason in the U.S. also seem to be losing faith in the capitalistic and
political structures that control the nation’s wealth and power.

The
unlikely popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as presidential
candidates is evidence of widespread public dissatisfaction with the political status
quo. They are at opposite ends of the
political and economic spectrum: Trump personifies Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy
that sanctifies unrestrained greed and self-satisfaction at the expense of the
public welfare, while Sanders represents the socialist ideal of government as our
brothers’ keeper. Rand’s objectivism sacrifices
altruism in free enterprise for vulture capitalism, while socialism sacrifices
individual freedom for an unrealistic altruistic political ideal.

The
U.S. is at a crossroads of religion and politics, with freedom and democracy at
risk. The evolution of U.S. democracy has
resulted in an emphasis on individual rights and wants at the expense of providing
for the common good. Plato predicted as
much, favoring a benevolent dictator over self-rule since the majority of people
could not be expected to act in their own best interests; and Edmund Burke warned
Americans that in a democracy we forge our own shackles. Pogo affirmed them both, observing that we
have met the enemy, and it is us.

Libertarians
have long warned of the dangers of big government to freedom, but today neo-libertarians
condemn big government and ignore the greater dangers to freedom represented by
the big banks and businesses of Wall Street, whose insatiable appetites for cheap
money are fed by the Federal Reserve. Those
capitalists who control the wealth and power of Wall Street are Rand objectivists,
and government seems either unwilling or unable to stem their power.

A
healthy democracy depends on a strong middle class, and in the U.S. the middle
class has been exploited more by Wall Street and the easy money policies of the
Federal Reserve than by big government.
But most conservative Americans have not seemed to notice and consider the
welfare programs of big government the main enemy of the middle class, even
though most of those welfare programs are Social Security and Medicare entitlements
that benefit a shrinking middle class rather than the poor and needy.

The
Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has made health care a government entitlement,
and has come to illustrate the conflict between socialism and capitalism. When campaigning for President, Obama
promised to provide for cost controls for health care before making it a
universal right, but that never happened.
As a result, vulture capitalism has corrupted public health care, as
evidenced by astronomical increases in pharmaceuticals, demonstrating the need
for cost controls in government entitlement programs.

To
protect the U.S. middle class from further erosion, Americans must acknowledge
that big business can be as much of a threat to the middle class as big
government. Both are part of the problem
and both must be part of the solution, and that will require political
initiatives that provide a viable balance between individual freedom, free
enterprise and providing for the common good.
Neither Trump’s objectivism nor Sanders’ socialism can succeed in
America, but something in between must be done to prevent further erosion of
the middle class by the rich and powerful vulture capitalists—otherwise, individual
rights and democracy will be at risk.

A
healthy democracy requires balancing individual rights with providing for the
common good, and that requires regulating the big banks and corporations of
Wall Street that have been flourishing while the rest of the economy (Main
Street) has been languishing. The
problem is not free enterprise but the unrestrained greed of vulture capitalism
that limits competition rather than encouraging it, and the monetary policies
of the Federal Reserve and the lack of regulation of the banking industry since
the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 that have favored the rich and
powerful conglomerates of Wall Street over the smaller businesses of Main
Street.

A
strong middle class must be sustained by a form of free enterprise free of the vulture
capitalism that exploits the weak to benefit the rich and powerful. That is an imperative of faith taught by Moses,
Jesus and Muhammad that is summed up in the
greatest commandment to love God and neighbor. It is ironic that most neo-libertarians claim
to be evangelical Christians but do not see how the love of money and power is
inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus.

Our
faith is in what we love most. If we
love God more than money then we must put the value of God’s love over the
value of money, and that should be reflected in the priorities of our politics
and our pocketbooks. People who love God
share God’s love with others, while people who love money exploit others to
promote their selfish interests. In
politics the love of God requires that we find a middle ground between the
extremes of Trump’s objectivism and Sander’s socialism, balancing our individual
freedom with providing for the common good.

Notes
and References to Resources:

Previous blogs on related topics
are Faith and Freedom, December 15,
2014; The Greatest Commandment,
January 11, 2015; Wealth, Politics and
Religion, March 8, 2015; The Power of
Humility and the Arrogance of Power, March 22, 2015; Liberation from Economic Oppression, May 31, 2015; Balancing Individual Rights with Collective
Responsibilities, August 9, 2015; and Religion,
the Pope, and Politics in the Real World, September 27, 2015.

For commentary on Matthew 6:24,
see Faith God and Money at pages
117-119 of the J&M Book; also Lesson #8, Riches and salvation (Mark 10:17-27) and Lesson #9, the Widow’s mite (Mark 12:41-44), at
pages 45-50; and Treasures and the heart
(Luke 12:33-34) at pages 235-238.